


Convergence

by FromAshesAndStone



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Redemption, Slow Burn, World Between Worlds, bendeservedbetter, benswolo, divergence scatter, ignore the other fic I haven’t finished, sequel to the sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:13:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27141586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromAshesAndStone/pseuds/FromAshesAndStone
Summary: Ben deserved redemption. And now he’ll have it.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

He wakes tasting dirt.

It was at once bitter and smooth; like chocolate melting on the tongue, like summer’s rain in the gardens floating above Hanna City. Neither of which he’d experienced in years, and likely never would again. 

Sunlight spills through leaves, buttery and blinding and warm. He feels languid. Restful. Perhaps even at peace.

Is this what it meant to be one with the Force? His body returned to the earth; a presence in the bend of the trees, a quiet moan in the wind? 

Now he hears a voice. It’s soft and feminine, and reminds him of his mother when she’d murmur silly things to him as a child. With a sharp pang he thinks that maybe this is what comes after, reliving the moments he’d left behind when he chose to walk towards the dark. 

Perpetual regret. 

The voice is moving closer, becoming clearer as it nears. “...I don’t know, Bram.” it says, leaves rustling in its wake. A muted static answers in short return, and he hears the female voice scoff as response. 

“Nerfherding son-of-a…” the disembodied voice trails off quietly, covered by sounds of arms swatting at tree limbs in frustration as they move through the density. “Bram,” it begins, now louder and more pronounced, as if trying to remain calm. 

“Your dingy labor droid needs a software update. I don’t know why I always end up chasing it down after one of these ridiculous little malfunctions…Oh, I see something just through here.”  
  
He doesn’t remember this particular moment, or anyone named Bram for that matter.

In fact, the voice is sounding less and less like it belongs to the graceful articulation of his mother and more like an ill tempered cantina girl.

Suddenly the owner of the nameless voice is crashing through the foliage with as much ease as a Stormtrooper avoiding a blaster shot. She’s all red hair and long limbs, tumbling into his vision so abruptly that she nearly stomps her muddy boot on him before he can move away.

On him.

Oh.

He looks down with sudden realization; he’s alive. Or, at least, present in his body on some plane of existence.

He’s not just rocks and dust and tree bark, his consciousness a thing seeping through morning dew and and floating on the breeze. He’s here.

The epiphany of his mortality distracts him long enough to make him forget the girl who’d nearly landed in his lap like a sack of spoiled Meiloorun fruit just moments before.

“Oh, um. Hello.”

The voice brings him back, and when he finally lands his gaze on the graceless chit, he finds an unfamiliar face looking back at him with a startled expression that likely mirrors his own. 

The static returns, this time close enough for him to decipher. **So** **what** **is** **it**? grumbles the voice from the communicator clipped at his red-headed intruder’s sleeve. She was close enough that he could just make out her eye color. Gray.

Her head’s a mess of copper curls, a wild and untamed crown. She’s dressed in muted greens and browns, a loose moss-colored tunic outfitted over tight breeches and tall leather boots. There’s a blaster strapped to a belt at her waist.

Not just a cantina girl, then.

The girl keeps her eyes firmly on his as one hand slips towards the blaster. **Kitya**. **The** **droid**. **Is** **it** **there**?

Annoyance flashes in her eyes as the communicator breaks their silence with its harsh crackle. Kitya’s eyes, it had said. Which were a peculiar shade of gray, now that he looked closer. Flecks of gold sparkle near the edges, like coins as they sink under the surface of silver waters.

He brings himself to a sitting position, and raises his hands palms-up to gesture at innocence, even as she curls her fingers around the blaster. **Kitya** , the communicator insists.

The girl is distracted, and before she can remove the weapon from its holster, it has slipped from between her fingers and is resting in his grasp. Her expression slides between shock and confusion, and then settles squarely on anger.

If she hadn’t been contemplating murder before, the heat sparking in her eyes suggests she’s certainly considering it now.

Her lips purse, and she silently pulls another blaster from its hiding place somewhere behind her back and aims it at his head. Shit.

“Put it down, magick boy.”

It was actually endearing, the way she commanded him. As if he hadn’t been heir apparent to the darkness, one of the most powerful entities in the galaxy. As if he couldn’t close his fist and crush the breath from between her ribs without so much as a nod of his head.

Somehow he’d landed on some backwater planet that regarded wielding the Force as mere sleight of hand. Though Force users were generally few and far between, his presence was something to be feared across lightyears of planets for all who crossed his path.

Or it had been, until…

Until.

His fingers press into the handle of the blaster, where years of use have weathered it smooth and dull.

“Magick doesn’t exist,” he intones, tossing the weapon into the bushes behind him as he stands on shaky legs.

Kriff, how long had he been laying in the dirt like a forgotten Stormtrooper helmet? His bones creaked as if he’d spent centuries right here in this forsaken mud hole.

The girl has the wherewithal to look affronted as her dirty old blaster tumbles into the leaves without much ceremony.

“Excuse me, that was a perfectly good piece of machinery!” she spits incredulously, stalking towards the bushes and squinting her eyes as if to chasten him for his carelessness.

“That space trash wouldn’t fetch a single credit,” he returns absently, surveying the immediate area and taking stock of his garb, a ribbed black tunic with dark breeches and a pair of boots.

He couldn’t have been here that long, then. He was mostly clean. Unharmed.

As for how he’d gotten here.…

When he feels something cold press between his shoulder blades, he stills his movements and takes a deep breath, waiting silently.

“Is your life worth as much as that _space_ _trash_?” the girl snarls in his ear, pushing the blaster deeper. He smirks then, feeling the heat of her at his back.

“Probably not,” he returns quietly, and he can feel her arms sag and the pressure release slightly as she lets out an exasperated huff. “You’re an irritating son of a bantha, aren’t you, magick boy?”

“I’ve been called worse,” he shrugs, turning to face her. Her fiery hair falls haphazardly around her shoulders, and it’s a wonder she can see anything amid the rust-colored cloud that enshrouds her.

He notices just how small she is now; he could gather her in his arms and toss her in the shrubs as easily as he had the purloined blaster.

It was an intriguing thought.

The girl looks up at him, her lips pressed in a tight line and her eyes simmering with unbridled displeasure at the audacious nerve he had to stand nearly two heads taller than she.

“Lucky for you, I’m on a fortnight’s probation for weapons usage,” she murmurs, grabbing his wrists somewhat gently. Her fingers splay over his skin and slide together, although they can’t quite reach comfortably around enough for her to gain purchase.

“So,“ she whispers, lip quirking slightly. “You’ll have to settle for _this_.” On the emphasis of her final word, the girl slaps a pair of metal cuffs with a sixteen- inch iron bar between them onto his wrists, and she smiles.

“Is this how you treat everyone you’ve just met?” he quips, covering his surprise with words dripping with sarcasm. She’d pulled a fast one, he’d give her that.

Nevermind that it would take minimal effort to remove his shackles, he’d let the insolent girl drag him to civilization with her false sense of security, and hopefully he’d be able find a port with a serviceable enough ship to take him back where he belonged. 

Wherever that was.

For the first time, he really considered his current situation, how he’d gotten to this place.

He’d been laying in a dark cavern in Exegol, the distant sound of sobs echoing off the dank walls as they slipped further and further away.

It hadn’t been the sharp, bitter death he’d imagined; it had felt more like fading into a quiet stream of nothing.

Yet here he is, his body knitted back together with the Force for some unimaginable purpose, in the middle of some stagnant, isolated planet adrift in space.

He needed to go back, to be...somewhere.

If he’d been given another chance to make things right, he didn’t intend to waste it standing around in the middle of nowhere.

Just then, the thin edge of the cuffs bite into the sensitive skin at his wrists as the girl pulls him behind her like a misbegotten child.

“I found something, alright, Bram.” she’s speaking into her communicator, taking a sideways glance at him over her shoulder. “It’s a hulking beast of a man. Doesn’t seem very intelligent, but could be used for labor if we don’t find that rustbucket of yours.”

He doesn’t even have an opportunity to be offended, as the communicator quickly answers back with a garbled, crackling question.

“Name? Oh, I don’t know if he even has one. Hey, magick boy, “she calls, now speaking to him and nearly out of breath as she yanks him up a steep hill. “You gotta name?”

He stares at her blankly, turning the simple query over and over in his head.

She spins around at the top of the hill, dropping her measured gaze to his as she breathes deeply in and out, her chest heaving and her brow glittering with sweat.

From her current position on the hill, she’s slightly high enough to have a vantage point above him. “Well?” she asserts, her lips parted and her eyebrows raised.

I’m no one, he thinks. I’m a ghost. A traitor to my family, my master, to everyone I’ve ever known. To the light, the dark, and everything in between.

Her brows fall, perhaps truly concerned for the state of a man who didn’t seem to know his name, perhaps who didn’t own one at all.

“It’s Ben.” he says finally, offering nothing further to either himself or the girl in front of him. 

She sighs and turns to continue tugging him up the hill. “Okay, Ben, let’s go. I promise you don’t want to be caught in these woods after nightfall.” 

And he follows her.


	2. Chapter 2

Ben allows the fire-headed girl to carelessly drag him behind her by the cuffs like a child with a bedraggled doll, ducking as she swats limbs and branches out of her way with wild abandon and little grace.

He chooses not to speak, not even to protest when a particularly reedy sort of limb nearly smacks him directly in the eye. If he hadn’t spent years honing his reflexes and use of the Force, he may have left these gnarled woods with more facial scars than he’d entered with.

As it is, Ben has decided that since he doesn’t quite remember where he was or how he’d gotten there, he may as well let himself be guided to civilization. There, he can captain a ship and leave this backwater hell as far behind as possible.

He has amends to make.

Not retribution, but redemption.

He’d finally found some small semblance of balance in the Force after years of walking a miserable tightrope made of all the things he wanted to be, but couldn’t. Needed to be, but couldn’t.

The dark.

The light.

The Skywalker mantle; nearly as oppressive as the sweltering heat he is currently experiencing as he tramples through an unknown muggy and dense forest behind some chit with a concerningly good aim for directing stray tree branches towards his lineaments.

He needed to get back to where he was meant to be, to take up his rightful place in the galaxy.

That place certainly wasn’t here.

A high-pitched crackling interrupts his thoughts. _Kitya, this is headquarters, what’s your current location? Over._

The girl sighs and releases her hold on Ben’s fetters so she can wipe her brow before bringing her arm up to speak into her communicator.

  
“Bram.” she intones, “For the last time. We don’t have a headquarters. A rusty old droid shed is not a headquarters.”

  
There’s a long pause as the voice on the other side of the com-link considers this response.

  
_Kitya, just tell me where in Kriff are you?_ It cackles finally, the owner clearly feeling miffed.

  
Kitya peers into the sky, one hand shading her eyes against the blaring suns. “We have a coupla’ kilometers yet. I’d say we’ll be home just before dusk. Which is good for our beast here, because he doesn’t look like he’ll make it much farther in the get-up he’s got on.”

  
Ben glances down. Get-up?

  
The communicator buzzes and crackles as the voice laughs. _Denna’s got hotpot on the stove tonight, so don’t be too late. You know those little nerf-herding sewer rats’ll be swarmin’._

  
Kitya smirks and starts walking again, leaving Ben to watch her haphazardly smack at the branches in her path. When she’s gotten so far into the thick of the trees that he can only just make out the copper gleam of her hair, he hears her call.

  
“Well you heard him, Ben. Denna’s got a hotpot on and we are wasting daylight out here! Can you manage to follow basic commands, or do I have to tie you up like a misbehaving bantha?”

  
Ben Solo has traveled to many exotic places in the galaxy. He’s eaten the fruit of trees and drank the wine of vines from planets lightyears beyond reach. He’s seen wonders beyond comprehension, touched the thread between life and death, and manipulated the Force to his will with little effort.

  
He’s never so much as heard of this Denna or her infamous hotpot.

  
Yet for some reason at this very moment, it sounds like everything Ben has ever wanted in his entire life.

  
He wipes his brow best he can with cuffed wrists and follows the girl into the trees.  
_______________________

  
Ben and his warden finally break into a thinner clearing just as the suns begin sinking from the sky and the shadows begin melting into themselves.  
At first glance the village seems primitive; there’s a smattering of thatched huts and dirt paths, with flickering lights strung overhead. In the very center is a bonfire where people have gathered with all manner of cooking instruments.

  
Roasted animals turn on spits and metal pots bubble and hiss, their steam rising upwards to fill the air with fragrant smells. People are mingling and talking as children play with wooden swords and blasters. It doesn’t seem like there are enough huts for everyone, but Ben has seen his fair share of poor village folk and knows that multiple families can live together under one cramped roof.

  
He’s usually greeted in places like this with stoic faces and trembling hands. Sometimes wearing a mask hid more than just his face; sometimes it was a barrier between himself and the things he did.

  
Ben shakes off those memories and continues to follow Kitya down a flight of wooden stairs winding down what seems to be the side of a hill. She waves and nods her head at villagers as they pass, and none seem very surprised or concerned by the towering man shackled behind her. Rusty, beat up droids beep and whistle without a glance in his direction.

  
He becomes curious as they move beyond the center of the village, away from the fire and jumble of people. Where is this mad woman taking him?  
He’s contemplating what dank and dark little hole the girl plans on putting him in when they round the trunk of a particularly large tree. Ben stumbles as he truly sees the “village” for the first time.

  
They continue downward into something of a valley, where inside mammoth trees soar upward like spires towards the sky. Carved into their massive trunks is an entire city. Dwellings and storefronts, even what he surmises is a cantina, all etched into the living tree as if they grew that way from the ground.

  
They reach an intricately carved wooden bridge that spans across the deepest part of the valley, which merges into spiraling stairways as it meets each colossal trunk.

  
“Lur Isefa.” Kitya says, stopping suddenly to turn around. Ben nearly pitches into her, but finds purchase.  
“Come again?” he questions, confused by the girl’s garbled words. He’s hardly spoken in hours, and his throat is dry and parched.

  
“Lur Isefa,” she repeats. “That’s where we are. A moon of Tython, if you want to be specific. I could tell by the look on your face that you hadn’t a clue.”  
“Tython? As in the ‘Deep Core region’ Tython?” Ben asks incredulously, taken aback.

  
“That would be the one. Although I’m not sure why that comes as a shock to you. You didn’t realize you were in the Core?” The girl laughs, her copper curls dancing like ribbons as she turns around to begin walking again.

  
“...I mean, I figured you must be really dense to be dead drunk in the middle of the forest, but I never…” she stops and turns around again suddenly, drawing her eyebrows close to peer at him. “What are you, some kind of starport stowaway? I had you pegged for one of those credit-loaded weapons traders that like to hide off-world here sometimes. Especially with that outfit, but-”

  
“Is there something wrong with my clothes?” Ben interrupts, taking note of the disdain dripping from her words. He couldn’t imagine why a simple black tunic and breeches required two unnecessary remarks, for Kriff’s sake.

  
A class 5 labor droid missing several bulbs and plate covers bumps into Ben as it attempts to roll past, and he catches several expletive beeps thrown in his direction when he sidesteps clumsily out of the way.

  
Kitya turns around with a huff, then places her hand on his forearm. “It’s ironweave,” she says, her thumb whispering slightly over the material just below his elbow. “Expensive stuff, but hardly made for blistering heat and forest dwellers like me. I assumed you wore it for protection, but now I’m thinking you used one of those clever magick tricks to lift it off some poor drunk bastard.”

  
Ben snatches his arm away and the girl laughs again.

  
“Don’t take it personally. My da’ was somewhat of a grifter himself. He’d have killed for a get-up like that.” Kitya says, continuing her determined stride across the bridge.

  
“Probably did, in fact.” she murmurs, chuckling to herself.

  
Ben follows, acutely aware of the sting he feels. Not from her words, but where she’d touched.

  
He’d spent the better part of his adult life shielding every aspect himself from others, and no one had the audacity to put their hands on him unless they were prepared to die for it.

  
But that wasn’t who he was anymore.

  
Was it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to finish a fic. I’m going to finish a fic. I’m going to finish a damn fic.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a dream and now I have to write it because my brain won’t stop talking about it.


End file.
